Mistaken Identity
by gracedUSA
Summary: When a client's wife gets caught up in a dangerous case of mistaken identity it's falls to Maddie and Fi to fix it. Reviews appreciated! Don't own Burn Notice!
1. Chapter 1

Intentions only get you so far.

And all the good intentions Michael had harbored when picking up this case couldn't erase the image of his client's wife being thrown, half conscious, into the filthy, viscous water of a south Florida swamp – victim of a mix up and a mistaken identity and too many documents with only a last name on them for identification. Now victim of forty-eight hours of torture for information she didn't know.

Michael hoped he wasn't too late, but as he waded into the water – trying to keep himself concealed, close to the compound wall, where the guards couldn't spot him – as he saw Bree's body floating face down, blood staining the water, his hope started to evaporate.

She was still warm in his arms, though she was completely limp. That was a good sign. As he dragged her into the back of Sam's Buick he checked for a pulse – still there. Another good sign. But she wasn't breathing.

It took less than a minute of CPR before she started coughing up water, gasping for air, and slowly her breathing returned to normal. For a few minutes her eyes came open and she registered her surroundings. But her expression was so clouded with pain Michael didn't ask questions, he just waited until she fell back asleep and started checking her injuries.

There were rows of burns down one arm – only six, only second degree – but still enough to need urgent treatment. Her ribs and stomach were dappled with bruises – holding true to form for the general progression of most interrogations.

Rough up your target, if that doesn't work try something methodical.

There were a few other injuries. But nothing that would have killed her if it weren't for the swamp water now flooding all her wounds. She would need a lot of antibiotics.

But that wasn't Michael's primary concern – his primary concern was that when she'd come awake those few times – behind the pain he'd seen a terror – not a terror because she thought she was still with her captors – fear of him – of Sam. Something wasn't right. And he needed to figure out what. He checked her arms again, and he saw, through the blood and burns and mud, needle tracks. Then he saw that the zipper on her dress had been torn open.

They'd drugged her and abused her.

It'd likely be a while before she trusted anyone with Y chromosome.

Except maybe Jack.

Except maybe their client, her husband, who'd inadvertently gotten her into this mess.


	2. Chapter 2

When they got back to Maddie's house Jack was already there. He was at the car before Sam even had the engine off.

"Can I touch her?" he asked, reaching out to take Bree from Michael's arms.

"There's no spinal injury but she has some broken ribs, be careful," he replied, passing the limp body to his flustered client, keeping a hand under her head in case Jack did something unwise.

Maddie had clean sheets on the guest bed and gone over to Sam's to get his med kit. It wasn't much, but right now, with everyone emotionally drained and physically exhausted, it made a big difference.

As soon as Bree was settled in bed Sam started systematically cleaning and treating her wounds. That is, until she woke up and panicked. Reflex is a powerful thing. And after whatever her captors had done to her, Bree's reflexes were still sharp. The moment her eyes came open and registered Sam's presence she somehow found the power to pull away from him and get to her feet – ripping out the row of stitches he'd been trying to get even.

Sam raised his hands, putting down the needle.

"I'm not gonna hurt you Bree," he said quietly, "it's me. It's Sam Axe. I've never hurt you before. I'm not gonna hurt you now."

But she just shook her head, eyes wide.

Hands still raised, Sam took a step forward, hoping he could somehow mend the fresh stream of blood flowing from her arm where she'd ripped out the stitches.

"Do not touch me!" Bree shouted at him, wincing and crumpling to her knees as the pain hit.

Michael, Maddie, Jack and Fiona all appeared in the door half a second later.

"What happened?" Michael asked.

"I don't know brother…she panicked…ripped out her stitches…" Sam tried to explain as Jack cautiously walked over to Bree's kneeling form and ran his hand along her cheek.

"You okay baby?" he asked, quietly, gently.

"Hurts," Bree whimpered, curling into his touch, tears filling her eyes.

"I've got you," Jack said, picking her up and laying her back in bed.

Bree's breathing slowed and evened, her eyes slipped closed again, the blood on her skin contrasting sharply with her light skin and the blue of new-formed bruises.

"You know how to put in stitches?" Michael asked Jack.

"No," Jack replied, "I'm a programmer – I fix computer systems – not people."

"Let me give it a try," Fiona suggested.

Michael and Sam both shot her a puzzled look.

"My guess is they raped her while they had her drugged," Fiona explained, "which means she probably won't react with so much panic if it's another girl putting in the stitches."

"Makes sense," Sam said.

"Worth a shot," Jack agreed, getting up to leave.

"Oh but don't you leave," Fiona put in, "if she panics like that again I'm betting you're the only one who's gonna calm her."

"Okay," Jack nodded, sitting back down and running his hand along Bree's bloodstained cheek.


	3. Chapter 3

"She's gonna be okay, right?" Jack asked as Fiona methodically cleaned and stitched and bandaged Bree's injuries.

"She'll need a lot of antibiotics – but yeah – she'll be fine," Fiona replied, continuing her work.

Jack just nodded, his fingers tracing the curve of Bree's cheek, eyes filling with tears.

"This is my fault," he said abruptly.

"No it's not, Jack," Fiona countered, "She picked up one of your files while she was visiting your office at lunch. That's not your fault. You didn't tell her to pick it up. She didn't leave with it. There was nothing you could have done that would have changed it."

"I never should have gone into this business," Jack murmured, "there's too much risk. Too many ways too many people can get hurt. I love building the software – I really do – but someone's always after it. I've had the police file three restraining orders already…and now this…"

"It's a little hard to convince me anything is a dangerous career move," Fiona said, "gun-running for the IRA isn't exactly the most stable job."

Jack blushed, "Right…I forgot about that…"

"Jack she's going to be fine," Fiona said, "I promise."


	4. Chapter 4

Fiona's promise proved hard to keep. Or at least it seemed like it. When Bree woke up vomiting blood at two in the morning. They all knew Sam had the most extensive medical knowledge and that he should be the one checking on her. But any time he tried she pushed him away with surprising force – energy coming from adrenaline alone. Same went for Michael.

Finally, after half an hour of deliberation Maddie stepped in.

"Remember that time you got beat up in eleventh grade?" she asked Michael.

Confused he just nodded and tried to get back to his conversation with Sam.

"In case you don't remember you'd been kicked in the stomach and started vomiting blood later that night. We didn't have any money for the ER. But I managed. I'm sure I can manage now."

At least for a while, Maddie proved that she certainly could manage. She calmed Bree down enough to get her showered and into clean clothes – in spite of Michael's protests that water pressure on fresh wounds was a bad idea – then Maddie busied herself coaxing Bree to swallow a tablespoon of Gatorade every few minutes. The younger woman fell asleep again soon enough, head on Maddie's shoulder, one arm wrapped protectively around her own bruised waist.

"I told you," Maddie said calmly when she finally let Michael and Sam back in.

"Do you know how stupid that was?" Michael insisted, "you could have ripped out the stitches Fi put in, you could have let more infection get into those injuries, you could have…"  
"Mike, brother," Sam cut him off, "was Maddie's plan textbook, no. Did it work, yes. Stop complaining and forge me a prescription for her antibiotics."

Antibiotics are a tightly controlled substance. Fear of resistant bacteria means they're not prescribed all that often – especially not particularly strong ones like ceftins. But ceftins were the weakest drug that would even make a dent in the infection ravaging Bree's body. Her fever was rising and Fiona had informed Michael and Sam that the broken skin on her side was getting swollen.

Forging a prescription isn't all that hard – not if you're already trained in covert ops that is. And Michael had Bree's copied out and in hand at the pharmacy in less than an hour.

It was good to be out of the house – at least for a few minutes. He didn't like the way things had played out – not one bit. The gravity of Bree's injuries and the urgency of taking down the ring that had captured her looking for Jack's predictive software were made worse by the fact that Bree panicked any time he touched her. He didn't like not knowing exactly how infected her injuries were. He didn't like not knowing what they'd asked and what they knew. He didn't like it one bit.


	5. Chapter 5

It got worse before it got better. The ceftins may have helped with infection, but they made the vomiting worse and the fever just wouldn't come down. She was delirious, in and out of sleep, for eighteen hours. No longer responding positively to anyone, Michael wasn't sure what to try next. Maddie – once again relying on a mother's knowledge of household field medicine – had settled Bree in the bathtub, a towel under her head and a trickle of cold water running on her feet. It had fixed the delirium but her temperature was still 102 and it would likely be another twenty-four horus before the ceftins did enough work to get it much lower.

In the mean time, leaving Maddie with their patient and Fiona keeping an eye out for their enemy, Michael and Sam sat Jack down to figure out just exactly what had happened.

"She was coming by my office for lunch. She said she wanted to talk. I was in the other room grabbing her a coffee. I came back she was gone, one of my files, the one on the predictive stock market analysis software I've been working on, was open on my desk with a note on it…it was written…in…in blood…" Jack trailed off.

"Keep going," Michael said brusquely.

"It said they didn't need the file because they had its creator. And that the Motherland would rise again and crush the American economy."  
"So they thought she was you?"

"The files only have our last name and our employee ID. Her name badge doesn't have an ID number on it. It makes sense," Jack said, "and it's clearly the guys I told you about before. The mob's been poking around and causing trouble for our firm for years…a financial planner got killed a few years back…they said it was a freak shooting…but…"

"But apparently the Russian mob knows that this one particularly successful hedge fund is an important puzzle piece in destabilizing the economy and making their work easier," Michael finished.

"Yeah." Jack replied.

"We can take care of this," Sam said, "We will take care of this. But we're going to need your help."


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks for reading guys! Hopefully I'll get this finished up within the next week! Reviews always appreciated!**

Twenty-four hours later the ceftins had started to show their work. Bree was still vomiting but her fever had broken and she wasn't delirious anymore. What's more, the pain had settled enough that she wasn't so terribly afraid of Michael and Sam now. She let them check her injuries or her temperature or her pulse, and she'd answer any questions they posed.

"You're gonna heal up just fine," Sam said as he finished the first real exam he'd been able to give.

She looked at him, wide eyed and asked, "And what about the baby?"

And everyone froze.

"Baby?" Jack asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you find it?" Bree asked.

"Find what?"

"Why do you think I picked up that file?" Bree asked him, sounding exasperated now.

"But what does that have to do with…" Jack began.

"I put my ultrasound in that file on your desk – I assumed you'd be looking through it while you ate…just like always…and that you'd find the picture and be excited," Bree said, "I had a cake and everything."

"You had a cake?"

Bree nodded.

"You're pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"Do you still have the file?" Michael asked.

"Of course – I thought it probably counted as evidence?" Jack replied.

"So you still have the picture?" Bree put in hopefully.

"No – it wasn't there Bree. Are you sure you put it there?"

"Yeah."  
"Her fever's down and there wasn't any head injury – if she says she put it there she probably did," Michael added for good measure.

"But if we don't have it…" Fiona began.

"Our friends from the mob do. Which means…" Sam continued.

"They knew about the baby," Bree finished.

"That explains all the bruising on your abdomen," Michael said, "it seemed oddly concentrated."  
"You mean they were trying to…" Bree shook her head and trailed off, closing her eyes, grabbing hold of whoever was closest, Sam, and curling into his chest.

"They tried to make her miscarry?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Michael replied stoically.

"Did it work?"

"We don't have any way of knowing. She's been in so much pain from the other injuries and I don't have an ultrasound machine in my med kit," Sam said, rubbing circles on Bree's back.

"Can't we please take her to a hospital and find out?" Jack asked, desperation growing in his voice.

"And let the police start asking questions about how all this happened?" Michael countered, "best case you get arrested for domestic violence, worst case they find out about the software you were writing – which – honestly – probably doesn't comply fully with the nuances of honest stock market policy – and your whole company goes under – destabilizing the economy – and giving the mob exactly the opportunity we've been trying to prevent."

"So what are we going to do?"

"You, me and Fiona are going to the police station – get that file," Michael said.


	7. Chapter 7

"What are we doing here?" Jack whispered as they stood in the Miami Police Department headquarters – bloodstained file in hand.

"You found it on your office floor. You thought someone might be in trouble. That's all we're telling them," Fiona said quietly.

"Isn't that lying?"  
"Are either of those statements false?"

"I guess not."

"Good…now focus. Sooner we get this done sooner you can get back to Bree."

The exchange went off without a hitch. The police prodded a bit – but they were on the case now. And that would buy Michael and the others a bit of time.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't undo the damage they'd all already suffered.

When they got home they couldn't see anyone – it was deadly silent but for the sound of running water from back by Maddie's bedroom. Jack went running, Michael followed him, Fiona just pulled her gun and sat down on the couch – figuring someone should keep watch just in case.

Bree was laying in the bathtub again, wearing one of Sam's Hawiian shirts, her head cradled on one arm, eyes closed but clearly not asleep. And there was blood – too much of it.

Not thinking – Michael's field training took over.

"Where's the injury?" he demanded, pushing his mom aside, then registering her horrified expression and realizing abruptly just what was going on.

"What's wrong with her?" Jack asked, kneeling down beside Maddie and readily accepting her comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry Jack," Bree murmured, "I'm so sorry."

"What's she talking about?" Jack asked, growing frantic, hands trembling as he stroked her sweaty cheek.

"Jack they…she…" Maddie couldn't get the words out.

"I'm sorry brother," Sam added.

"Jack she lost the baby," Michael said, choking on the words.

Jack just shook his head, tears coming as he kissed Bree's forehead and whispered a prayer for the little one they'd lost.

Bree slept for eighteen hours. When Maddie and Fiona tried to help her up once the worst was over and she'd gotten cleaned up Bree just collapsed, emotional and physical strain taking over.

They stayed at Maddie's another three days. When they left it was with plane tickets and passports in hand.

"We're moving to Vancouver," Bree said, "Sam says I'm safe to travel."

"No more financial software development?" Maddie asked.

"I'm designing videogames," Jack said.

"Much lower risk choice," Fiona added.


End file.
